This week in coffee felt less like hunting for caffeine and more like wandering into tiny human moments scattered around Saigon before the city fully wakes up.
Before 6am one morning, I found a coffee lady tucked into a little hem off LĂȘ Thá» RiĂȘng. She was the only one operating for blocks.
A nice dark iced milk coffee. I love that first violent hit of iced milk coffee. đ But after days of it, I started craving the cleaner intensity of cĂ phĂȘ Äen ÄĂĄ â straight black Vietnamese coffee over ice. Thereâs a focused kind of energy in it that feels almost medicinal. Sharp. Motivated. Slightly concerning. Probably unhealthy in quantities Iâm currently exploring.
One morning I walked out with no destination at all. Just the intention of letting coffee find me. After wandering through streets Iâm fairly certain I was never meant to be on, under brutal heat, I ended up at another completely unassuming stand on BĂči Viá»n.
I ordered in Vietnamese and her entire expression changed. Suddenly there was smiling, correcting my pronunciation of âBĂči Viá»nâ while I filmed, asking if I wanted the coffee in a glass mug instead of takeaway plastic. Yes. Absolutely yes. That tiny gesture somehow said everything. Respect given, respect returned. I love a glass mug!
What struck me this week was how quickly attitudes soften when people realize you are trying â even badly â to meet their culture where it lives instead of demanding it come to you.
I never see any foreigners sitting at these tiny sidewalk coffee stands. They stay inside cafes with air conditioning and playlists curated in Stockholm or Melbourne. Meanwhile, the real pulse of Saigon is sitting six inches above the pavement on a blue plastic chair while scooters scream past your knees.
And honestly? That is the only way I want to experience this city.
On LĂȘ Thi Rieng, I had one iced black coffee at the stand and got another one to go. đ
Straight Black Coffee
Le Thanh Ton street level – Black with sugar and I asked for Black with no sugar, no milk, and with ice.
One stand gave me the exact opposite of what I ordered â black coffee arrived sweetened with sugar and no ice. Did I complain? Of course not. I know Iâm lucky to even be sitting on a sidewalk in Saigon drinking coffee in the first place.
You wonât find these in a guidebook. No walking tours stop here. No pin on any travel bloggerâs Google Map. But if you want to understand how Thailand actually works, look at the shophouses. I personally canât take my eyes off of them.
The Thai shophouse, or tuk taew (àžàž¶àžàčàžàž§), is everywhere. Concrete rows, three or four stories tall, narrow frontages, deep footprints. Ground floor is a business. Upper floors are where people sleep. They line every major road in Nonthaburi and most of greater Bangkok, built fast during the economic boom decades of the 1970s through the 1990s, when this country was expanding so quickly that nobody had time to make things pretty. They just needed them to stand up.
The design comes from Chinese immigrant shophouse traditions, adapted through Thai urban planning and poured in concrete. The narrow frontage is intentional. Property taxes and lot prices were historically based on how much street frontage you occupied, so builders went deep instead of wide. Maximum space, minimum tax exposure. Every unit shares a wall with the next. A whole city built on a tax strategy.
I have been living in Nonthaburi for the past few months. I walk these streets every day. And what I keep stopping to photograph is not the temples or the river or the night markets. It is these rows. Because they tell the real story. Four buildings. Four stages of the same life.
One block got a fresh coat of paint. Green, yellow, red, bright enough to stop traffic. A Korean restaurant on the ground floor. Somebody decided this row still had a future and put money into it. It works. The color is bold and unapologetic against the haze and the power lines and the taxi rolling past. This is a shophouse that got a second act. A few streets over, a long cream-colored row stretches down the block. Classic mid-boom construction. Still functioning. Shops open on the ground floor, laundry hanging from upper balconies. But the concrete is starting to show its years. Nobody is investing in a facelift here. It is doing its job, and that is enough.
Then there is the block where the old and the new share a wall. On one end, dark water stains running down the facade, tangled wires, a faded sign for a business that probably closed years ago. On the other end, a Cafe Amazon franchise with clean glass and warm lighting. Coral and cream paint, fresh enough to look like a different building entirely. But it is not a different building. It is the same row. One owner gave up and another one moved in. That is how these streets regenerate. Not by tearing down. By filling in.
And then the last stage. Peeling blue trim. Green tarps stretched across openings where awnings used to be. Shuttered shops at street level, metal gates pulled down for good. But look closer. One air conditioning unit is still running on an upper floor. Somebody still lives there. The building is fading, but it is not empty. In Thailand, things do not get abandoned the way they do in other countries. They just get quieter.
I have spent over twenty years documenting street art and urban landscapes in more than forty countries. The thing that always draws me in is not the architecture itself. It is what happens to it over time. The layers. The patching. The moment someone decides to paint their four units bright red while the neighbor keeps theirs bare concrete. That is where the story is. Thai shophouses were never designed to be looked at. They were designed to be used. But decades of weather, economics, migration, and individual decisions turned them into something worth paying attention to. The arched windows popular in 1980s builds. The balcony railings rusting at different rates depending on which floor gets the most rain. The signs in Thai, Chinese, Korean, sometimes English, stacked on top of each other like geological layers of who did business here and when. Nonthaburi is not on anybodyâs architecture tour. But it should be. Not for the buildings themselves, but for what they show you about how a city actually lives. Not the postcard version. The real one. Concrete, wire, weather, commerce, and time doing what they do. These are the buildings nobody photographs. So I do.
A cĂ phĂȘ sữa ÄĂĄ on a busy median. Traffic whizzing by, but somehow, sitting on a tiny red stool with sweet coffee in my hand became the only thing I noticed. The coffee lady looked lonely out there in the middle of the chaos â cars, trucks, motorbikes rushing past with no pause, her little cart full of drinks waiting for customers. So I stayed a while. Maybe made her day a little less lonely. Maybe she did the same for me.
Sunday morning blog posting requires a little less chaos and a little more air conditioning. Highlands Coffee in Pham Ngu Lao.
On Monday mornings, I wake up before the church bells, before the roosters, and certainly before any coffee ladies. So, on those mornings, I have a canned coffee waiting in the wings of my arsenal (you may call it a mini fridge.)
This brand happens to be deeply tied to the “First Lady of Coffee” in Vietnam, Le Hoang Diep Thao.
To understand King Coffee, you have to look back at Trung Nguyen, the powerhouse brand founded in 1996 by Le Hoang Diep Thao and her then-husband, Dang Le Nguyen Vu.
âą TNI Label: Notice the “TNI” logo at the top, which stands for Trung Nguyen Internationalâthe entity Thao managed.
âą The Flavor Profile: It is designed to mimic the “Vietnamese Bold Style,” which typically uses Robusta beans for a high caffeine content and a distinct, smoky bitterness. Hello!
âą Cultural Iconography: The design featuring a woman in an Ăo dĂ i and a NĂłn lĂĄ (conical hat) is a deliberate choice to brand the coffee as an authentic cultural export of Vietnam. đ»đł
Lime Coffee: Strong Vietnamese drip coffee (cĂ phĂȘ phin) served over ice with a squeeze of fresh lime juice and sometimes lime zest grated on top. Some versions add a thin layer of salted cream or condensed milk. Zesty!
The flavor logic is straightforward. Mint cools. Vietnamese coffee is dark, bitter, and heavy. The mint lifts it, adds a cold brightness that hits your nose before it hits your tongue. đ
Between about 7:00 and 7:40 thereâs this brief window where Saigon feels almost gentle. A little breeze moving through the streets before the sun fully takes over. The more pleasant the weather, the longer I sit and read. Currently reading âA Naked Singularityâ by Sergio De La Pava.
But eventually the heat wins.
Thatâs usually when I go searching for my breakfast bĂĄnh mĂŹ from my favorite lady â the one who adds tomatoes without charging extra, then refuses to accept the extra 5,000 Äá»ng tip I want to give her because I appreciate the gesture. Itâs become our daily little battle. One I eventually win. đ
The best Banh mi lady at 13 Do Quang Dao in Pham Ngu Lao
Vietnam keeps giving. And I keep receiving with gratitude. đ
The first time you come to Thailand, you notice them everywhere.
Tiny temples at the edge of sidewalks. In front of banks. Outside 7-Elevens. Guarding construction sites. Sitting confidently in front of corporate headquarters as if they were always part of the blueprint.
They are called àžšàžČàž„àžàžŁàž°àž àžčàžĄàžŽ, spirit houses.
Pak Kret
They are homes.
Long before Buddhism took root here, animist beliefs shaped daily life. The land had spirits. The trees had spirits. The ground itself was inhabited. When you build on land, you displace something. The solution is not to ignore it. The solution is to provide a new residence.
So, you build a house. Elevated. Facing an auspicious direction. Installed with ceremony. Blessed by monks or Brahmin priests. Carefully placed according to astrology.
Inside you will see incense, marigold garlands, fruit, rice, jasmine water, and often bottles of bright red Fanta. Offerings for the guardian spirit of that land. A gesture of respect. A request for protection. A quiet negotiation between the visible and the unseen.
Sometimes pigeons visit the houses
What moves me is not the shrine itself. It is the coexistence.
A glass tower in Bangkok will still have a spirit house at its entrance. A multinational corporation with quarterly earnings reports and biometric scanners still pauses to light incense in the morning. A luxury condo will cast a shadow over a tiny gilded house that stands firmly in front of it.
Modernity here does not erase belief. It builds around it.
Today I walked Bond Street in Nonthaburi again. Half-built towers. Stairwells open. Electrical lines hanging. The kind of buildings that are in-between; not abandoned, not alive yet.
And the graffiti.
The walls are getting hit while theyâre still unfinished. Tags on bare cement. Quick spray jobs on columns that will absolutely be painted over in a few months. Itâs not elaborate murals; more like presence. âI was here before this became something else.â
Hereâs what Iâve noticed living in Thailand: space here isnât neutral. Itâs conscious. There are spirit houses outside condos, outside 7-Elevens, outside office parks. Offerings. Incense. Garlands. Even construction sites sometimes have their own small shrine tucked near the entrance. Thereâs an awareness that buildings arenât just structures â theyâre inhabited, protected, watched over.
So I have this theory â and Iâll say clearly, this is my observation, not a hard fact.
Writers hit buildings in progress because they know itâs temporary. The wall is unfinished. The paint isnât final. The tag will disappear. Itâs almost like tagging a draft version of the city. No one has spiritually claimed it yet. No tenants. No shrine out front. No blessing ceremony completed. Itâs still in limbo.
But once a building is finished? Once itâs open, occupied, lit up at night? The graffiti drops off dramatically. Especially on places that visibly have shrines or offerings outside. That feels like a boundary. Not just legal â cultural. Spiritual.
Iâve also heard â again, this is just what people have told me â that some writers avoid certain abandoned hotels or houses that have gone into disrepair. Not because they respect the property owner. But because you donât know whatâs lingering there. Did someone die there? Is the space âheavyâ? In Thailand, that question isnât abstract. Itâs real enough to influence behavior.
Whether thatâs universally true or not, I donât know. But walking these sites today, it felt clear: construction zones are fair game because theyâre unfinished, and therefore unclaimed. Once the building settles into its role â once the spirits are invited in and the people move in â it becomes something else.
And personally? Iâm drawn to this stage. I like the graffiti on raw concrete. It feels honest. Temporary city language on temporary surfaces. Itâs the only moment the structure shows its bones and its interruptions at the same time.
Work crews set up makeshift âkitchensâ to make lunch on their breaks
A few months from now, the paint will cover it. The lobby will shine. The shrine will stand outside with fresh marigolds.
The last week of April, melting into the first week of May (today, as I write this, it is 89âąF, feeling like 98âąF with a warning of âexcessive heatâ *31âąC, 37âąC) felt like it shouldâhot, loud, imperfect, and somehow full of small moments that mattered.
In the middle of a bustling, chaotic market, I sat down and drank my first cĂ phĂȘ sữa ÄĂĄ of the week. Not in paper, not takeaway, but in a proper glassâthe way I prefer it. Thereâs something about that glass that says we both understand the arrangement. Iâm not rushing anywhere. Iâm going to sit here, right at your cart, and drink this coffee the way it was meant to be drunk.
Street coffee in Saigon isnât about convenience. Itâs about presence.
Yoghurt coffee feels very Saigon to meâpractical and inventive. Someone looked at coffee and thought, âYes, but what if we made it colder, creamier, sharper?â And somehow it works. The bitterness of strong Vietnamese coffee against the cool tang of yoghurtâit shouldnât, but it absolutely does. It tastes like adaptation. Like a city constantly reinventing itself without losing its center. I still prefer Coconut Coffee as my specialty coffee here.
In that same alley, the following day, I had my first negative vibe of my entire tenure so far.
I was sitting, drinking, taking a few exterior photos of the space around meânot bothering anyoneâand the coffee lady gave me that unmistakable energy. You know the one. Suspicion mixed with disapproval, served without words. She didnât approve of my picture-taking, not understanding that it was nothing intrusive, just exterior. If she only understood the series Iâve been doing, đ.
She proceeded to stand in front of me and overtly take a photo of me, as though my mugshot would go up on her wall.
My first reaction was internal: Be zen. Donât let her strange behavior affect your day.
And honestly, it became a beautiful little meditation. I reminded myself: âyou are healthy, you are fortunate enough to be sitting in an alley in Saigon drinking coffeeâlet it go.â So I did. I even found myself grateful to her for the lesson. đââïž
As for having my photo taken? I donât mind at all. Daily life gets photographed here constantly. We are all part of someone elseâs background story. Just a weird experience.
Met a lovely married couple sitting next to me today and ended up being gifted something Iâd never tried before â BĂĄnh TrĂĄng Káșčo MáșĄch Nha đ„„đŻ
A light rice cake topped with coconut shavings and a sticky, sweet malt syrup drizzle⊠simple and absolutely delicious.
They told me it was their childhood snack, something they hadnât had in a long time, so today was a little treat for them, too.
Their phone translator helped us talk, and somehow that made it even better â strangers sharing stories, laughter, and food across languages.
For me, travel isnât about the big sights. Itâs a sidewalk table, kind people, and a sweet little rice cake Iâll never forget.
Saigon keeps giving me these moments. â€ïž Forever grateful.
Another reminder came at a corner draped in shade, protecting me from the intense heat already rising, near the intersection of LĂȘ Lai andâŠhonestly, I forgot the cross street, but Iâll find it again because the coffee lady there deserves remembering.
She got a kick out of my Vietnamese. đ
Iâve realized something: if I begin with one or two practiced phrasesâjust enough to show respectâtheyâll happily continue speaking Vietnamese the entire time I sit there. I nod, smile, and understand maybe twenty percent. They think I understand more than I do, but somehow thatâs enough.
And maybe thatâs the point.
Connection first. Perfect language later.
That first âHitâ from a Ca Phe Sua Da before the ice begins to meltâŠone of the things I live for.
She doesnât talk much, which I like. Coffee ladies understand the assignment. They give you space to sit quietly, to read, to write, to simply be. Sometimes she brings an extra cup of tea without a word. That kind of kindness says more than conversation.
